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Kammenos receives NATO reassurances with regard to Turkey

Defense Minister Panos Kammenos says he has received reassurances from NATO that it will do everything it can to make Turkey understand that it cannot provoke its ally Greece and dispute its territorial integrity.

Kammenos made his comments after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Secretary of Defense James Mattis in Brussels on Thursday morning and briefing them about the incident on Monday night when a Turkish vessel rammed a Greek coast guard boat near the Imia islets in the eastern Aegean.

Turkey, which has upped the incendiary rhetoric in recent weeks with regard to Greece and Cyprus, has denied that incident was intentional.

“The US Defense Secretary and the NATO Secretary General now have a complete picture - different from the one depicted by Turkey – that it wasn’t an accident,” said Kammenos.